Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Well, no. But this is the future. The next step in a logical development. Or back to the beginning again. We started with civs being completely the same, only their names and colours differentiating them and you as the leader (civ2). Then there came traits for the civs and Unique units (civ3). The went further with giving several leader traits, thus allowing for more variation AND repetition (civ4). The next escalation is completely unique abilities, as well as added buildings and biases (civ5) as well as leader agendas. The next step would be to have completely unique civs but fewer unique units/buildings (Age of Empires). Same tree, but different unlocks. That allows also the "War Elephant" to not be unique to one culture...
The next step in that design is to not make the English spawn close to an ocean, but make the civ that is close to the ocean become the English. But the danger here lies in too much dependency: not only on the map, but also other factors such as social movements (like Religions). It needs to be a game and that means player control. If I want to play as the Romans but the map in game 1favoured the Mayans, someone else took them in game 2, game 3 I needed the Goths to defend and in Game 4, it would be better to go with Persia, but hey, I want to play as Rome? Now imagine that the Romans required the Etruscans or the Myceneans or for you to conquer a certain number of close by city states as well. You'd never get to play them. That's just not fun.
Precisely what led me away from the idea of a 'deterministic' Civ model. Even if you could determine all the factors that go into producing a particular 'unique' Civ/Faction and cram them into a game, it would not produce a fun game. I don't think it is unique among gamers to want to play a particular Civ/Faction: Role Playing, explicit or implicit, is a part of almost every game of any kind" some days you just wanta be Caesar (or, if you are seriously warped, Caligula)
So it needs a balance between "a logical tree" and/or "context factors" as well as a freedom of choice. It is fun to go Olmecs-Rome-Khmer after all. But I am very much looking forward to that game. It is a total departure from Civilization, but I am very much looking forward to that. The main difference: a dynamic understanding of history AND a reactive understanding of gameplay. The latter is very important, maybe comparable to Crusader Kings, in that it targets a different type of player than the boardgamey civilization does.
We'll know more, hopefully, after the playthrough next week, but as far as I've been able to gather from the numerous snippets, in Humankind playing a succession of, say, Agricultural Factions might be the worst possible strategy. It seems that since each different Faction has a different type of 'bonus' that carries over, mixing Agricultural, Expansionist, Mercantile, etc as needed will compile a better set of 'residual bonuses' - especially since the Fame Stars that allow you to progress through the Eras and win the game are scattered so that a concentration on a single aspect of the game will only help with a fraction of them - a broad approach will (apparently) be a better game strategy.
This might be the complete opposite of a gamer's wish to 'build on strength' and try to continue playing the same type of Faction or a 'historical progression' (all Chinese Dynasties, as has been speculated at length on these forums!).
I'm waiting for more information on that aspect of the game design with Extreme interest.